Trujillo, Peru to Santiago de Chuco, Peru

We got a late start today, we were actually up early but we seemed to get bogged down a bit. Had an early breakfast and then started trying to get things ready to head out – we ran into a snag with one of the “Hero” cameras. These are cameras that we can mount anywhere on the bike or helmet – they take shots or videos etc. We  have not used them since northern CA because most of the pictures come out blurry and you end up with a 1000 plus photos to sort through. We knew this was going to be an epic day of vistas so we thought we’d try them again, this time mounting it on the top of John’s helmet…. Well, one of them wouldn’t work no matter what we did for about 30 or 45 minutes and after getting to the point of saying “F*ck it, we need to get moving” it started working for some unexplained reason.

After getting on the road about 10am – we managed to head straight out of town without a wrong turn. This may be a first occurance for us – typically there are ZERO road signs, ZERO street signs, and about 9 million taxis trying to kill you while you’re negotiating the various turns to make it out of town. To top it off, we each have a different opinion of which way you should go. But, today, it worked and we started heading east.

The road up into the mountains was spectacular – decent road surface and it climbed and climbed and climbed. We were quickly up around 10,000 foot elevation when we ran into our first snag. We ended up in the town of Otuzco which was a weird labrynth of dirt streets, mud buildings, and lots of people looking at us like we had 3 heads. Then after making a couple laps thru the little town, the people all started pointing in various directions, not much consensus as to where we should go. Finally, we got back to the town square and asked a guy where the road to the next town was. Well, we passed it about 5 miles back because we didn’t think it would be gravel. Head on back there.

We got back to the road and began a discussion about how much of the gravel road we wanted to do. When we first planned this section of the route the map indicated the road was all the same – from Trujillo all the way up into the mountains and back down to Lima. AND, the GPS (which is never wrong?!) indicated about the same thing. Well, reality bites sometimes and it looked like we were in for at least 80 miles of gravel road.

The agreement was we would ride to the first “big” town and make a decision after that. That was about 60 kilometers. Off we went. The road quickly turned to absolutely “sh*t” – softball sized loose rocks, baseball sized rocks with mud and BIG “gravel” – like the size of golf balls. Add to that the trucks and lunatic bus drivers and you’ve got a challenge. The road was climbing and climbing - switching back and forth working its way up and up. As we talked on the intercom we were both complaining about the dust – and then it started to rain – lightly. Well, at least it will keep the dust down. Then the rain started to get heavy and we suited up to deal with it. And all the dust turned to mud. And the trucks and busses left deep ruts of mud here and there…

Dan’s bike started developing a squrtching sort of noise when it was under power – light acceleration led to a “scurtch, scurtch, scurtch” sound coming from the rear wheel. Not good. We talked it thru a bit and it was either a wheel bearing (bad) or it was the rubber cushions in the sprocket assembly which are just squeaking (not bad). We decided to let it go for a bit and see what happened.

Then it started to really rain – huge rain drops and it was coming down hard and heavy with huge standing puddles and running water on the road. We pressed onward.

Finally making it to the town of Quiruvilca after about 2 1/2 hours (to go 60 kilometers or 40 miles) the rain had stopped and we decided to take a look at Dan’s rear end (the bike’s rear end). This involved taking the rear wheel off which isn’t too big of a job. We had it off in about 10 minutes and the bearings looked fine – we smeared some oil/grease on the rubber parts to see if that would quiet them down, reassembled the bike and gave it a test ride. The squrtching seemed to be gone so we were confident it wasn’t the bearings at least.

Are we having fun yet?

Now we had to decide if we should go on to Santiago de Chuco – about another 30 miles or so. Yea, let’s try it. Maybe the pavement starts there? Sure thats it! Off we went and the road started to climb again … we were already at 10,000 feet and huffing/puffing while pulling the wheel off. We worked our way up to nearly 14,000 foot elevation with the bikes wheezing a bit and it was cold, muddy, nasty, and absolutely beautiful. We finally cruised into Santiago de Chuco around 5 pm – so 7 hours to go about 115 miles.

We rode around town looking for a place to stay – looked at a couple and they were “rough”. Settled on another one that was still “rough” but we could get the bikes inside. The rooms are barren paint peeling walls, no bathrooms, the beds are like rock, there is one light bulb in the ceiling, and so forth but it is home for the night. Total cost for both rooms? 20 Soles or about $6.30. We walked around town to try to find something to eat. We were walking slow and both of us were sucking wind. The town was at about 10500 feet and we were feeling it…

A shot of Dan’s room

Tomorrow we decide whether to head back or push onward. To push onward the road is about 250 miles of the same crap we have been riding on….

Cheers!